this post was submitted on 02 Jul 2024
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In all seriousness, I think government bodies switching to Linux (UK's, China's, some Indian states') attributes the most to this.
Even if that's the case, it's telling of Linux' maturity.
Oh absolutely!
No I think it's the Steam Deck. It's like half of all actively used Linux machines.
Source? Last I checked, the Steam Deck was very much in the minority even when narrowed down to just desktop Linux.
I confused it with Steam statistics sorry
no, the statistics are based on browser agents, very few steam deck users browse the Internet on their devices. it's also only half the Linux devices on steam, not of all Linux desktops
But that's not really a Desktop is it? If we'd count mobile device we'd also have to include Android and then the situation would look completely different.
Steam deck has a full fat kde desktop on the stock os
I could install a full fat kde on the entertainment system of a car - still wouldn't call it a desktop PC.
You can plug in a keyboard, mouse, and monitor
We don't include Android here. What I meant is that the Steam Deck does count in that statistics.
Connect the Steam Deck to a compatible dock and you can quite easily use it as a desktop. At the end of the day, it's still an x64 based PC that's just handheld.
I'm not sure that's really a good argument. I can connect an android smartphone to a monitor, keyboard and mouse and call it Desktop. It's also just an arm64 or x64 based PC just handheld.
A Desktop PC IMHO is a device that is used for everyday "office" work and neither android smartphones nor steamdecks are that - but laptops for example are (IMHO)
It is. I use it as such regularly. Keyboard+mouse+screen = browsing firefox as usual. Works quite well. Libreoffice, okular, signal desktop... I've used worse computers in recent years, steamdeck desktop experience is better than many 4 to 5 year old cheap laptops with win10 or win11.
In Steam maybe. But this is StatCounter which is website visits. I doubt many Deck users are browsing the web.
For some reason I think a lot of them (probably even more than half) have tried browsing the web or at least using the desktop mode at least once.
Oh that is a good point, why didn't I think of that!
I'm fairly sure it's deficiencies in StatCounter's measurement that's accounting for it. Statistical noise, basically.
It's probably even higher than that. These stats are mostly based on website visits I believe. And many Linux users are also privacy-minded and might spoof their OS in the browser. I bet a large portion of the Unknown is actually Linux too.
It's hard to tell, as there are so many things that influence it. A huge factor is selection bias, as only a small number of website embed StatCounter, and that's very likely to not be a representative sample. I'd bet that the influence of that is magnitudes larger than of user agent spoofing.
And a portion of the "Windows" as well. Hiding in plain sight and all.
China is actually down. India is high but not increasing